Love at First Sight? 
David, Jonathan and the Biblical Politics of Gender
Yaron Peleg, George Washington University

ABSTRACT

The article presents an alternative queer reading of the relationship between David and Jonathan in 1st and 2nd Samuel and suggests looking at the relationship between the two men not as homosexual but as heterosexual, as the attraction and love between David, who performs the role of a man, and Jonathan, who performs the role of a woman. Peleg argues that the text seeks to justify David’s rise to power not only by discrediting Saul on political and religious grounds, but also by undermining the eligibility of Jonathan as the king’s successor through a subtle manipulation of gender roles. Peleg shows how to justify the termination of the Kish dynasty the text sexualizes the relations between Jonathan and David, it then destabilizes these relations until it finally reverses them to portray Jonathan as David’s “female bride.” Peleg concludes that by describing him as passive and effeminate the text does not suggest that Jonathan is “homosexual” but rather that he is a “woman” and as such, unqualified for kingship according to the ancient, Israelite tradition. 

The notion that the relationship between Jonathan and David involved more than just friendship, that it was also sexual, is not new. The friendship between the two men gained exemplary status as a love story already in early Christianity. In our own time, the idea has long been part of the lay reading of the relationship between the two. Within contemporary gay culture, David and Jonathan have been established as a proverbial royal couple; an inspiring example for a future acceptance and tolerance of gays in the Western world. In recent years, these popular notions have been augmented by more substantial biblical scholarship, which attempts to validate the homoeroticism of the ancient love story by employing gender or queer theories. What I would like to suggest in this paper, however, is an alternative queer reading; one that presents the relations between Jonathan and David not as the relations between two male lovers but as the attraction and love between a “man” and a “woman.” In other words, my intention is to read this text not only as a story that justifies David’s rise to power by emphasizing his masculinity, but also as a text which disqualifies Jonathan politically by emphasizing his femininity. In addition to discrediting Saul on political and religious grounds, the text also undermines the eligibility of Jonathan as the king’s successor through a subtle manipulation of gender roles. To justify the termination of the Kish dynasty the text sexualizes the relations between Jonathan and David, it then destabilizes these relations and finally reverses them to portray Jonathan as David’s “female bride.” By describing him as passive and effeminate the text does not suggest that Jonathan is “homosexual” but rather that he is a “woman” and as such, unqualified for kingship. 
Although some of these notions have been suggested by others, the focus of most such feminist, gender and queer critics seem to be on the homosexual possibilities of the text. While the exceptionally close relations between Jonathan and David certainly invite such readings, especially in our gender-conscious age, I think that the ambivalence of this ancient story and the Bible’s fairly clear stance against such [sexual] relations, both legally and narratively, ultimately work against interpretations of this kind. One of the main difficulties in reading this text as a homosexual love story, I think, is not the impossibility or even the apprehension of such love as much as the usefulness of it as an exemplary literary paradigm. While the story might certainly resonate as such for readers today, it was probably much less so for the original readership of this old text. 
Yet, what is perhaps most striking in the long hermeneutic history of the David and Jonathan story is not the attempt to read the two men as “gay,” but the fact that the heterosexual paradigm that their relations may suggest—whereby Jonathan is portrayed as “woman” or “wife” to David the “man” and “husband”—has not been seriously or comprehensively considered thus far, even though biblical laws are clearly concerned with setting “social and religious behavioral patterns for an ancient Near Eastern … patriarchal society;” even though these laws prescribe specific roles for men and women, and even though these gender roles often function “at the level of performance rather than essence” as Deborah Sawyer observes.  What I would like to do in this essay, then, is try and account for the obvious erotic bonds between Jonathan and David not as an expression of the love between two men but the love between two people who perform the roles of a man and a woman respectively. 
My reading is based on two interrelated assumptions. The first is that this is a literary text whose pseudo-historiographic nature privileges the masculine realm of religion, diplomacy and war over the feminine domestic sphere. The second is a suspicion that, the editor/s of such a closely edited text that prohibits sex between men, at least formally, would wittingly portray one of Israel’s most illustrious heroes as a “homosexual.” 
That the Bible places men in the center of attention and action and relegates women to subservience and marginality needs little elaboration. The birth or death of women is not usually recorded in the Bible. Even the books of Ruth and Esther, named after their female heroines, begin and end with males. When a woman ventures into the masculine realm of diplomacy and war she typically employs feminine means to triumph, like the tent-peg that Jael used to kill Sisera with, or the grinding stone with which a woman killed Abimelech. When a woman is proven superior to a man in the arena of politics and war, as Deborah is in Judges 4, it is viewed as shameful and humiliating for the man (“I will surely go with thee; notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thy honor; for the LORD will give Sisera over into the hand of a woman,” Jud. 4:9). Women briefly take center-stage only in relation to men, as daughters, sisters, wives or mothers to be. Therefore, the portrayal of Jonathan as a “woman,” as I will attempt to show below, automatically puts him in an inferior position from a political perspective and disqualifies him as a legitimate ruler.
With respect to the hypothesis of homosexuality, if we believe that the Bible is a crafted work of religious art, as Robert Alter, Meir Sternberg and many others have shown, and especially that it is a text designed to correlate divinity with history an obvious question would be the purpose of insinuating that David had sexual relations with Jonathan. Although David goes on to commit grave sins later on, especially against Batsheva and her husband Uriah, his conduct in the chapters under discussion here is exemplary. Moreover, Jonathan’s submission to David is so utter and complete that it almost defies belief and even the hypothesis of homosexuality as a pretext for giving up the kingship on the altar of such love is a narrow excuse for it. In the fierce and competitive world of the Bible men do not readily give up their privilege, not even for the women [or men] they love. 
Several elements, then, which lend themselves to reading Jonathan as homosexual also lend themselves to reading him as “woman.” The first is Jonathan’s sudden and complete infatuation with David, his subsequent courtship of him, and David’s own admission of the depth and extent of his commitment to Jonathan at his death (נפלאתה אהבתך לי מאהבת נשים, wonderful was thy love to me, passing the love of women). The second is the subtle analogy that is made between Jonathan and his sister Michal. Both siblings fall in love with David suddenly and passionately but their affection is seldom returned if at all. A third element arises from the paradoxical nature of the previous two: why should the royal siblings develop such deep passion for such an inexpedient alliance? Moreover, just as Jonathan is feminized, David’s masculinity is emphasized. David’s military exploits replace previous descriptions of the military heroism of Jonathan (1 Samuel 14 for example), who is now relegated to a passive place around his father’s table in the palace.
David’s first introduction to Jonathan is quite dramatic (1 Sam. 17:57-18:1).
וכשוב דוד מהכות את הפלשתי ויקח אותו אבנר ויבאהו לפני שאול וראש הפלישתי בידו. ויאמר אליו שאול בן מי אתה הנער ויאמר דוד בן עבדך ישי בית הלחמי. ויהי ככלותו לדבר אל שאול ונפש יהונתן נקשרה בנפש דוד ויאהבהו יהונתן כנפשו.	And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. 
And Saul said to him: 'Whose son art thou, thou young man?' And David answered: 'I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Beth-lehemite.' 
And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. 
(The Jewish Publication Society) 	

David is brought before Saul straight from the battlefield, still carrying the head of Goliath in his hand. Jonathan is very impressed by this entrance, and can hardly wait for David to finish his speech before the author announces his deep attachment to him. Jonathan’s strong emotional reaction to David is surprising. As dramatic as David’s fight with Goliath must have been, it was not outside of Jonathan’s own extensive military experience and could not have overwhelmed him to the point of loosing his head in such a way. Moreover, as it stands in the verse, the intensity and depth of Jonathan’s affection for David is not compatible with the short time they know one another, with their probable age difference, or the difference in their social standing. One way to read this perplexing description, then, would be as the infatuation of an older man with a younger and socially inferior man.
The emphasis on David’s delicate beauty certainly supports this reading. We learn that David is small by the negative comparison to his older and taller brother Eliab (16:7), and we know that he is handsome because it is mentioned twice, once when he is anointed by Samuel (16:12) and a second time during the battle with Goliath (17:42). Both times the mention of his good looks seems programmatic. When Samuel travels to Bethlehem to look for a new king, he is instructed by God to disregard physical appearance as a qualification for kingship (אל תבט אל מראהו ואל גבוֹהַ קומתו כי מאסתיהו, 
Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him, 16:7). This remark comes at the expense of Saul, of course, whose chief attribute as potential king before his election was his height ( משכמו ומעלה גבוה מכל העם, from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people, 9:2). Nevertheless, when David comes before Samuel, the author takes note of his comeliness and describes him as ruddy and handsome. Similarly, when David prepares to fight Goliath, the burly Philistine considers the youth and good looks of the petit Jew before him with contempt, as they stand in marked contrast to his grotesque manliness. The description of David as a diminutive, young, and good looking shepherd of no social import certainly underscores the magnitude of his victory over Goliath. But it also feminizes him and lends sexual undertones to Jonathan’s attachment to him.
The next three verses draw further attention to the sexual context of the relations and manipulate the conventions of gender roles. By portraying the relations between the two men as both homosexual and heterosexual, these verses aim to first disturb the accepted sexual order and unravel it in order to rearrange it at the end. 18:1 reads:
And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.	ויהי ככלותו לדבר אל שאול ונפש יהונתן נקשרה בנפש דוד ויאהבהו יהונתן כנפשו	

Although David is the undisputed hero of the day; the man responsible for the victory over the Philistines, he is still a young and obscure lad, whereas Jonathan is the king’s son and heir. It is therefore not surprising that Jonathan takes the lead in befriending him. What is surprising is that there is no mention of David’s reaction to Jonathan’s kindness.
This dynamic becomes stranger still, when in the next two verses (18:3-4) Jonathan continues his inexplicable behavior by making a covenant with David, a covenant which is explained once again by his great love for him:
Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.	ויכרות יהונתן ודוד ברית באהבתו אתו כנפשו	

Once again, David remains passive. The consistent use of the 3rd person singular (ויכרות, באהבתו אתו, and he made a covenant, because of his love for him) suggests that Jonathan initiated the contract, and emphasizes the fact that the impetus for it was “because he loved him as his own soul.” By taking the lead, Jonathan fulfills the role that was usually reserved for the older party in a same-sex relationship, or, as Theodore Jennings Jr. shows, in the male bonding patterns that emerge in these chapters, or to the man in more traditional unions. Yet both his unconditional commitment to David and his eagerness to enshrine it, perhaps even performing a private marriage ceremony as suggested by the phrase ויכרות ברית, to make a covenant, undermine the convention of such paradigmatic power relations.
	Although, as Roland Boer notes, the primary reference for ברית, covenant, in the Bible is between Yahweh and various individuals, the term is also used to refer to a contractual relationship between husband and wife (Ez. 16:8, Mal. 2:14, Prov. 2:17, the first of which, significantly, is a symbolic marriage contract between Yahweh and Jerusalem, his bride). Moreover, the power relations that typically existed in an Israelite marriage as it was enshrined in the contract or ברית either between husband and wife or between God and Israel would certainly fit the original meaning of  ברית in Hebrew, which implies not an agreement or settlement between two equal parties but the notion of imposition, liability or obligation. Although these power relations are mitigated in this story by the preposition עם (with), which, unlike the definite marker את or ל (to), that interchangeably follow the noun ברית in the Bible, implies more of a mutual agreement than an imposition. There is in fact a neat symmetry in the three times ברית is used in the Jonathan-David story. In 18:3 Jonathan takes the initiative and makes the covenant between the two (ויכרות יהונתן ודוד ברית באהבתו אתו כנפשו, then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul). In 20:8 David takes the initiative by reminding Jonathan of the covenant they made (כי בברית יהוה הבאת את עבדך עמך, for thou hast brought thy servant into a covenant of the LORD with thee), while in 23:18, the initiation for renewing the covenant between them for a third time seems to be mutual (ויכרתו שניהם ברית לפני יהוה, And they two made a covenant before the LORD).  
The marriage analogy becomes more compelling still if we go back now to verse 18:2 and read it anew in the context of this analysis. After Jonathan is smitten with David and his attachment to him is so eloquently noted, his father steps in to intervene on his behalf:
And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. 	ויקחהו שאול ביום ההוא ולא נתנו לשוב בית אביו 	

The particular combination of the verb לקח, to take, which is often used in the Bible for the taking of a wife, and בית אביו, his father’s house, which alludes to the return of a wife to her father’s house in the case of incompatibility or the husband’s death (Gen. 38:11, Lev. 22:13, Judg. 19:2), strengthens the connubial sense of the relations between the two men. 
Verse 4 introduces yet another twist when Jonathan, in a touching act of devotion, takes his clothes off and hands them over to David:
And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his apparel, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle. 	ויתפשט יהונתן את המעיל אשר עליו ויתנהו לדוד ומדיו ועד חרבו ועד קשתו ועד חגרו	

The symbolic transfer of power, which has been noted by numerous critics, is expressed here not only by the surrender of the military paraphernalia to David, but also in the implied sexual subjugation of Jonathan, as indicated by the word ויתפשט (and he stripped). Jonathan voluntarily takes off the signs of his authority and manhood, and then strips before David in a heartfelt and submissive manner. This gesture is in fact anticipated in 1 Sam. 17:38 when Saul dresses David in his own armor before the battle with Goliath, but David rejects the gesture and takes off the restrictive uniform. David’s refusal to accept Saul’s signs of privilege and power is consistent not only with his refusal to physically harm God’s anointed or usurp his throne, but also with the fact that Saul is a “real” man, unlike his son. Accepting the same gesture from Jonathan is a whole different matter. This is one of the most striking aspects of this voluntary act, with which Jonathan expresses his willingness and wish to serve David by assuming the role of the passive party. 
From then on, the relations between the two continue in a similar pattern until Jonathan’s death. While David is constantly engaged in action, either doing Saul’s bidding or running away from him, Jonathan stays behind, usually in the palace. This is unusual, especially since previously Jonathan had distinguished himself on the battlefield. In addition, each time Jonathan is mentioned, his commitment and love for David is peculiarly stressed. And, each time the two meet, Jonathan is wistfully courting David’s affection and good graces, despite his elevated social status. 
Chapter 20 provides a fitting summary of these dynamics. The chapter relates in great detail Saul’s final rejection of David, despite Jonathan’s valiant efforts on his behalf. David, who is on the run from Saul, asks Jonathan to find out definitively what his father’s intentions toward him are. Jonathan readily agrees and the two arrange to meet at a later date. After Jonathan finds out that Saul is determined to destroy David, he delivers the information to David, who escapes. Yet even when David is clearly in an inferior position, on the run, hiding like a wanted criminal, he and not Jonathan has command of the situation. Moreover, it seems that despite his precarious position, David takes advantage of Jonathan’s affection for him and perhaps even uses him. Verse 20:1 reads:
And David fled from Naioth in Ramah, and came and said before Jonathan: 'What have I done? what is mine iniquity? and what is my sin before thy father, that he seeketh my life?	ויברח דוד מנוית ברמה ויבא ויאמר לפני יהונתן מה עשיתי מה עוני ומה חטאתי לפני אביך כי מבקש את נפשי	

This is the first time David takes the initiative to speak to Jonathan, and his plaintive tone stands in contrast to the many tender speeches Jonathan made to him in previously. The difference between them becomes starker as the conversation continues. In verses 1-4 David speaks twice to Jonathan, each time manipulating his affection toward him in a subtle way. When he first speaks in verse 1, he begins by declaring his innocence and concludes by raising the prospect of his death, greatly alarming Jonathan. Jonathan betrays his anxiety in the long and excited reply he makes, in which he tries to reassure both David and himself that no harm will come to David: 
And he said unto him: 'Far from it; thou shalt not die; behold, my father doeth nothing either great or small, but that he discloseth it unto me; and why should my father hide this thing from me? it is not so.'	ויאמר לו חלילה לא תמות הנה לא עשה אבי דבר גדול או דבר קטן ולא יגלה את אזני ומדוע יסתיר אבי ממני את הדבר הזה אין זאת	

Jonathan’s spontaneous exclamation חלילה (far from it! or, God forbid!), reveals his agitation at the mere thought of any harm that may come to David. His fear and unrest turn to nervousness and perhaps even hysteria in the rambling speech that follows, a speech which is never concluded and ends abruptly in mid-sentence with the words אין זאת, “it is not so,” as a sort of counter point to the first exclamation חלילה, “far from it.” 
But David is unrelenting, and in verse 3 he continues to manipulate Jonathan by saying:
And David swore moreover, and said: 'Thy father knoweth well that I have found favour in thine eyes; and he saith: Let not Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved; but truly as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death.'	וישבע עוד דוד ויאמר ידע ידע אביך כי מצאתי חן בעיניך ויאמר אל ידע זאת יהונתן פן יעצב ואולם חי יהוה וחי נפשך כי כפשע ביני ובין המות	

Fearing for his life, David is obviously agitated as well. But in contrast to Jonathan’s disjointed reply, he formulates a careful speech, in which he dramatizes Saul’s inner thoughts, and includes both the father’s concern for his son as well as Jonathan’s own affection for him, for David. The two are in fact related. David demonstrates that he is well aware of the tension that exists between the king and his son on his account, a tension that will lead father and son to collide later on in the chapter. David first mentions Saul’s awareness of Jonathan’s feelings for him, but says nothing about what he feels in return. This is odd. Considering his predicament, this would be the time to try and ingratiate himself with his friend by confessing his own devotion to him. David, however, does the opposite. Noting Jonathan’s devotion not his, he logically argues that knowing this, Saul would naturally want to spare his son’s feelings. David then concludes his speech with a dreadful cry that his death is almost certain. This somewhat theatrical conclusion leaves Jonathan completely shaken, so that all he can do is faintly whisper: מה תאמר נפשך ואעשה לך (What doth thy soul desire, that I should do it for thee?). Now, after he prepared him and has him completely under his spell, David continues in verses 5-8 to lay out his plan quickly and in a very business-like fashion. More important than the plan itself, is the way David concludes it:
Therefore deal kindly with thy servant; for thou hast brought thy servant into a covenant of the Lord with thee; but if there be in me iniquity, slay me thyself; for why shouldest thou bring me to thy father?' 	ועשית חסד על עבדך כי בברית יהוה הבאת את עבדך עמך ואם יש בי עון המיתני אתה ועד אביך למה זה תביאני	

Here, for the third time, David speaks about his possible death. But in order to ensure his plan, he rattles Jonathan by asking him to kill him now instead of making him go through the trouble of having his father do it. David mentions the covenant that Jonathan made with him again, shifting the responsibility once more to Jonathan and assuming the passive party of the contract (הבאת את עבדך עמך, thou hast brought thy servant … with thee). Finally, David’s exhortation to Jonathan to kill him cannot be serious, and is likely calculated to scare his friend and shake him even more, which is confirmed by Jonathan’s hurried exclamation חלילה (far from it!). David’s adroit emotional manipulation in this chapter is characteristic of other women in the Bible, who overcome their position of inferiority within the patriarchy by utilizing their weakness to their advantage. This is the case with the wife of Potiphar (Gen. 39:17-18), Delila (Jud. 16), Abigail (1 Sam. 25:20-31) and Esther (Es. 5), who flatter men in position of power over them by throwing themselves at their mercy. By a somewhat contrived appeal to his sympathies, then, David takes advantage of the man who most loves him. Again, this characteristically feminine behavior by David calls attention to the very conventions of gender roles, which are constantly confused and broken in this text. 
Next comes the anticipated confrontation between the king and his son. Saul accuses his rebellious son of betraying him, while Jonathan remains loyal to David in defiance of his father. Saul calls his son בן נעות המרדות (son of perverse rebellion), and exclaims: הלא ידעתי כי בוחר אתה לבן ישי לבשתך ולבשת ערות אמך (do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own shame, and unto the shame of thy mother's nakedness?). The difficult phrase בן נעות המרדות is explained by most commentators as a son of a rebellious mother or the son of a mother who brought Jonathan up in a manner that is unfit to govern. Although the precise meaning of the phrase is unclear, it sounds as if Saul is blaming Jonathan for being “a mama’s boy;” laying the blame for his shameful behavior on his mother in what would be a classic psychoanalytical interpretation of homosexuality. Although the biblical editors were unfamiliar with this Freudian concept, Saul’s repeated use of the word בושה (shame, disgrace) in reference to Jonathan’s choosing of David is certainly perceived in this manner in the context of ancient, Israelite culture. 
The subtle analogy between Jonathan and his sister Michal is yet another indication of the literary construction of Jonathan as female. The text presents several striking similarities in the nature and the dynamic of the relationship both siblings have with David. Like her brother, Michal falls in love with David suddenly and passionately but receives no encouragement from David. Just as Jonathan loved David “as his own soul” (18:1), “Michal Saul’s daughter loved David” (18:20). Jonathan’s remarkable affection for David, an expression of unique depth and intensity in the Bible, is matched by the fact that Michal’s love for David is the only instance in the Bible in which a woman’s love for a man is mentioned. Moreover, although the text does not explicitly mention it again here, we can reasonably assume that Michal’s attraction to David, like her brother’s before her, is aroused at least in part by the young shepherd’s good looks. This remarkable attraction, again, like that of her brother’s, is underscored by the fact that it is one of only three times in the Bible in which men are “offered to the eroticizing gaze” of women, as Jennings notes.  Thus, David is offered to the eroticizing gaze not only of Michal, but to that of her brother Jonathan as well through the subtle and subliminal analogy between the two siblings, the “daughters” of Saul.  
Similarly, just as Saul “takes” David and prevents him from returning to his father’s house immediately after Jonathan’s love for him is expressed (18:2), Saul agrees “to give” Michal to David immediately after her love for David is mentioned (18:21). The end of verse 18:21 may in fact hint at this double “wedding” with the phrase בשתים תתחתן בי היום, “'Thou shalt this day be my son-in-law through the one of the twain.” Ostensibly the reference here is to Saul’s eldest daughter, Merab, whose hand Saul first offers David. However, for some reason, this plan is never carried through. Merab is given to another man, Adriel of Mehola, and when Saul learns that Michal loves David he is just as happy to give her to David, as it makes no difference to him which of his daughters marries the usurper as long as he can get to him through one of them. In terms of narrative chronology, however, Saul’s comment to David, about becoming his son in law twice that day makes no sense, as it is clear Merab is no longer available. 
The analogy continues when the siblings’ love for David is mentioned for the second time in 18:28 and 19:1 respectively against their father’s hatred of David and his plans to have him killed. After David returns from what was designed as a suicide mission with the dowry of foreskins for Michal, “And Saul saw and knew that the LORD was with David; and Michal Saul's daughter loved him.” (18:28). Shortly thereafter, Saul plans yet another attempt on David’s life through his other “bride,” Jonathan: “And Saul spoke to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they should slay David; but Jonathan Saul's son delighted much in David” (19:1). The similarity between sister and brother is underscored by the juxtaposition of their affection for David against their father’s animosity toward him, a similarity that is highlighted through the striking parallelism ומיכל בת שאול אהבתהו – ויהונתן בן שאול חפץ בדוד מאד (and Michal Saul’s daughter loved him – and Jonathan Saul’s son delighted much in David). 
A more substantive analogy exists in chapter 19, when the love of both Jonathan and Michal ensnares David, who narrowly escapes from Saul and his henchmen. Just as Saul hoped and planned, the connection of Jonathan and Michal with David gives him easy access to his son in law. After Jonathan convinces his father not to harm David and invite him back to the palace, Saul agrees but eventually looses his temper again and tries to kill David for the second time (19:10). While Jonathan’s affection for David makes him reconcile his father to him, his good intentions turn out to be a trap, which David escapes by the skin of his teeth and, significantly, without the help of Jonathan (“but he [David] slipped away out of Saul’s presence… and David fled and escaped that night,” 19:10) . Michal’s attachment to David and her willingness to harbor him after he escapes from her father turns out to be David’s second trap, because this is where he flees to and this is where Saul sends his men to find the runaway David and kill him. Unlike her brother, though, Michal is actively involved in David’s rescue. Loosing no time, she bluntly tells David, “if thou save not thy life tonight, tomorrow thou shalt be slain” (19:11), and proceeds to lower David down through the window, perhaps even physically (19:12). She then hatches a bold ruse to deceive Saul’s henchmen (19:13) and when she is found out she lies just as boldly to her father (19:17). The connection between these two incidents reverberates through the use of three synonymous verbs to denote David’s escape each time. David slipped, fled and escaped from Saul after the first attempt on his life (וַיִּפְטַר, נס וימלט 19:10), and David went, and fled, and escaped after the second attempt on his life at Michal’s house (וילך ויברח וימלט 19:12). 
Michal’s “masculinity” is in fact mentioned already by the rabbis, who, based on Prov. 31:25, credited her as the only woman in the Bible who wore tefillin (phylacteries) and who was therefore believed to have studied Torah, a distinct privilege of males in Jewish tradition. Adele Berlin demonstrates compellingly how the gender characteristics of the brother and sister are reversed in the story, in which Jonathan is portrayed as passive and feminine and Michal is portrayed as aggressive and masculine. What this analogy may be suggesting, then, is that Michal is a substitute for Jonathan. As a woman, she becomes David’s legal spouse, consummating the relationship in a way her brother could not. This analogy is maintained to the very end of both siblings’ life, as Jonathan’s untimely death is echoed in the fact that Michal does not bear children to David till the day she dies (2 Sam. 6:23), which, for a woman in the Bible, is an abysmal fate.  
Then, just as Jonathan is given feminine characteristics, David is given masculine ones. The military exploits of David replace those of Jonathan, who is now relegated to a passive place around his father’s table in the palace. David’s virility is constantly stressed, first through his association with four different women (Michal, Merab, Abigail, and Ahinoam), but especially through the dowry he is asked to deliver Saul for his daughter Michal: the foreskins of one hundred Philistines. Before the deadline expires, David delivers not one, but two hundred foreskins, proving his manhood beyond doubt, literally and figuratively.
Finally, David’s lament over Jonathan, which contains the strongest textual evidence for his alleged homosexuality: נפלאתה אהבתך לי מאהבת נשים (wonderful was thy love to me, passing the love of women), can be read in several ways. The comparative preposition, מן (“passing” or “more than”), can suggest that the love the two men shared differed from heterosexual love only in degree, depth and intensity, but not in kind. But the comparison can also suggest a distinction between two kinds of love, a distinction between carnal love and spiritual love. A third way to interpret the verse is by examining its syntax, especially the use of the word לי (to or for me). It is one thing for David to say: for me [that is, as far as I am concerned] your love was wonderful, and quite another to say: your love for me [that is, the way you felt for me] was wonderful. In the first reading, David expresses his own feelings for Jonathan as well. In the second reading, he is simply paying homage to Jonathan’s great devotion to him.
Since the frequent reference, manipulation, and substitution of gender roles in this story draws attention to their very existence and carries a clear sexual meaning, it is not surprising that David and Jonathan were and still are read as lovers.  But it seems to me, that for the writer or the editor of the story it was not the possibility of sex between the two men that mattered as much as their confusion of gender roles. Indeed, most of the differences between the two men play on the differences between the sexes. As a result, the fundamental inequality that existed in biblical times between men and women is extended to their relationship. For the most part, Jonathan is placed in the inferior and subservient role of a woman, whereas David assumes the superior and dominant role of a man. This is precisely one of the main difficulties in regarding the two men as same-sex lovers. While the traditional hierarchy of same sex relations usually stipulated that an older and socially superior man assumed the active role in a relationship, socially and sexually, the instability of the active-passive dichotomy and the shifting assignments of gender roles throughout the story obscure such a reading. Jonathan is seeking David’s emotional support as well as his physical protection, despite the fact that he may be older, that he is more experienced and that he is socially superior to David. Jonathan’s portrayal may therefore be understood as mainly a means to an end, a literary construction of a political one. The unusual way it is done here is by casting the connection between the two men in the mold of a relationship between a man and a woman. Paradoxically, this untraditional casting of a traditional relationship seems to me to undermine rather than promote the potential for a homoerotic reading.
“When contemporary gender theory is applied to this particular theme within biblical literature,” writes Sawyer, “it becomes evident that both masculinity and femininity have been destabilized within the patriarchal framework and not with the intention to undermine this world-view, but rather to reinforce it.” Since the Book of Kings is clearly concerned with corroborating the ancient Israelite patriarchal system by solidifying and enshrining it in the institution of kingship, the gender flux exhibited in the David and Jonathan story seems aimed at destabilizing the former arrangements made between God and Saul in order to reaffirm God’s new choice, David, as husband and father for the nation.